Scheduling Made Easy

There are two essential documents in every project: the
Business Case and the Schedule. These two documents may of
course be backed up with design documents and more. The
business case defines what will make a project successful
and what the project will and won't do. The schedule
communicates and collaborates the how, what, where and
when for successfully delivering the project.

Scheduling is therefore a vital skill for a successful
project, yet one increasingly ignored. Project Scheduling
software seems to have made the situation worse as
management and project managers follow the belief that the
software will "do the scheduling". Nothing can be further
from the truth. Scheduling software such as Microsoft
Project is a great tool for managing and reporting on
project information. It is up to the scheduler to enter and
structure project information required. Scheduling Made Easy
teaches you what you need to feed your scheduling software
for the best results.

Rod Gill is a very experienced scheduler. What makes his
schedules stand out is that they are living, high value
schedules. This means they:

Start with a list of all deliverables from
the business case. Many schedules bear little
resemblance to the tasks that really need carrying out
to meet business needs.

Clearly show how and when the business case
deliverables will get delivered. Match tasks in most
schedules to a list of all business needs from the
business case and almost all schedules will miss a
minimum of 30% of the tasks required. Stakeholders then
wonder why their projects finish late!

Are dynamic: they are driven by links except
for identified project constraints all labelled with
notes to explain them.

Stay current: no incomplete work in the past
and no started work in the future. All work scheduled
for next week lists what needs to happen next week.

Provide 80% of project reports
automatically.

Tight time frame projects clearly show what
has to happen when and what the trend is for timely
progress.

Have accurate critical paths because all
tasks are driven by links (except for noted schedule
constraints), have audited Total Slack to ensure there
are no missing links and is peer reviewed with subject
matter experts.Treats Time, Resource Constrained and
Cost constrained projects differently so their priorities are met.

Include contingency delays and extra work
proportional to remaining Risks (business, feature and
schedule).

Report generation is automated from custom
menus for easy printing and formatting of all required
reports.

May include automated sharing of information
with data in spreadsheets or databases.

Use methods and techniques easy to train to
other schedulers and project managers.

Scheduling Made Easy is a training course essential to
all project managers and budding schedulers and anyone
wanting to use project scheduling software effectively. From
this course attendees will clearly understand what skills
they need to use their scheduling software and how a
Schedule is an essential part of successfully delivering a
project.

Scheduling Made Easy includes a demonstration of how to
build quality, high value schedules.